


Your Name in the Sand

by Yotsubadancesintherain5



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 16:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11604798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yotsubadancesintherain5/pseuds/Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: Rose used to explore by the ocean. This ocean was something that eroded away a small part of her.





	Your Name in the Sand

When they would travel this planet, looking for the bits and pieces of their friends or put their corrupted forms to rest for as long as it was needed, Rose would take the time to step on terrain that was full of grainy, small rocks. She chuckled and told Garnet that this was something humans called a beach, and there was more than grainy rocks on the shore. There were birds, crabs, and seaweed to be found on the beaches.

Garnet found the seaweed slimy and unpleasant to touch. But everything else she enjoyed, and as time went by she and Pearl would join Rose on this ritual. Rose would invite them to write their names in the sand, names that were theirs and theirs alone. The water would wash them away and make the sand anew but Rose thought of it as a gift to the sea.

When Steven was born, so many centuries later, Garnet found herself by the shoreline. It was dark, and the sea and sky were nearly indistinguishable in their beautiful dark blue. The waves rolled in as they always did, and Garnet did what Rose could never do again; write her name in the sand. When the water curled up and fell onto the shore, taking the name in the sand with it, Garnet felt the anger and the grief rise up all at once.

Deep down Garnet knew that this wouldn't have been any different. In that moment it felt like this wasn't a gift; it was theft, and at the end of her anger and grief she felt incredibly selfish. It was not anybody's fault that Rose was gone because this was the choice she made.

But she always thought of Rose as she was in that moment when Garnet fell down into the thicket. Someone that had the answer, someone that could dare to defy the Diamonds, and much later someone that could pick up the broken pieces of their fallen friends and never stopped trying to find a way to make them whole.

There was nothing complex about it; it hurt, hurt more than being struck hard, almost to the point of shattering. But Garnet realized then that humans had to go through this as well. They remembered the loved ones that had passed on, made memorials for them, let their legacy and life live on. She could do the same.

For now, Garnet stayed on the beach for a little while longer. Someday writing Rose's name in the sand and watching it become washed away would feel like a gift to the sea again.


End file.
